I am getting nearer to being able to resume work on the ECJS clerestory diner, but following a holiday I've spent the last two and a half weeks trying to catch up with lots of other things and I simply haven't had the energy nor felt that I had the necessary "mindspace" to make any good progress on a model that requires care and thought if a good result is to be obtained.

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Well at last I've done something. I've altered the moulded racks for the destination boards on the roof edges to put them back "central" within the extended roof length. After some deliberation I've trimmed the moulded cables and sockets off the carriage ends, bearing in mind that the vehicle probably remained gas-lit and with gas cooking. I also reckoned that if I turned out to be wrong about the retention of gas, then missing off details that ought to be there would be less of sin than depicting inapplicable electrical features on a gas-only coach. Roof-to-end joints have also had some filler applied. All minor points but every little helps.

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Before going off on holiday in mid to late May I was getting rather frustrated with my slow progress on the ECJS D.79 dining car model. Apart from lots of other things making competing demands on my time, the development of the model had opened up several lines of research and work that I had not anticipated, and whilst those were in several cases very welcome new features, it became obvious to me after stepping back from the task for a while that I had been trying to spin too many plates simultaneously. Notwithstanding the fact that I had not initially been entirely satisfied with the way that the glazed, "teaked" sides of the clerestory roof had turned out, I was going to have to re-evaluate those and other aspects of the model "as it stood" in a refreshed, hopefully relaxed (or at least calmer) mood.
My conclusions were that I needed to see the model looking much more complete, even if imperfect, in order to restore the feeling that I was actually getting somewhere with the project. I would have to accept that lines of enquiry about the prototype had gone as far as I could comfortably manage to take them at this stage and that assumptions about the condition of this vehicle in the 1930s would have to be made. At least for the time being, the clerestory sides were not bad enough to be totally rejected. The intended well-weathered finish for the roof and the addition of numerous extra ventilators to the clerestory sides will, I hope, help to conceal a lot of the imperfections. While pondering the matter of the roof, it also occurred to me that those extra ventilators (and I mustn't forget the gas lamp chimneys) would be very awkward to work around either by brush painting or by spraying if I was starting from the almost white bare cast resin and trying to get an "evenly grimy grey" finish. I decided that the roof would have to be painted grey before the extra fittings were added.
Although I will certainly return to the production of moulds to enable resin casting of finalised versions of the bogie parts, I also decided to temporarily set that matter aside and to get some black paint onto the bogies I had already made from the Mike Trice test-prints and Dave Sutton etched inner frames. Even if the bogies had turned out a little wider than they should be, and currently have bolster ends depicting leaf springing in one case and coil sprung bolsters for the other bogie, the printed parts are still only attached to the brass with double-sided tape and can easily be changed later. Dave has, by the way, already revised his etches to try to eliminate the anomalies revealed by the test builds.
I also felt that I needed to see the sides of the carriage in an attempt at proper teak finish, with some (already cut and tried) glazing in place. For the time being the obscured glazing for the kitchen and lavatory windows will be plain "translucent grey-white" although I do intend to later have a go at some paper prints suggesting the designs that were etched into the glass.
Anyway, with some gloomy, rainy days early last week that excused me from various outdoor distractions, I was able to get on with the job. Teaking of the sides was started first. The resin was already pre-coloured with some Humbrol 113 in the casting mixture, which came out a lighter shade of course in combination with the white resin. I started the painting process by applying a thin coat of more Humbrol 113, deliberately making the depth of colour uneven, keeping the brush strokes in sympathy with the intended grain directions but not attempting to produce graining as such. With that coat fully dry I then applied very sparing amounts of Humbrol gloss 69 yellow to each panel in turn, dragging these out almost as far as possible using a small flat brush, to get a graining effect. With that coat thoroughly dry I then mixed Precision paints teak about 50:50 with some satin varnish and a little black to darken the mixture (to suit an older teak finish), thinned the mixture to an easily flowing consistency and applied a couple of coats (with drying time between) over the previous layers. A sealing coat of clear varnish will aid the appearance and help to preserve the finish from the effects of handling, in readiness for bow-pen lining and insignia transfers, but for the moment the still slightly drab, unlined, marginally "too grainy" finish seems to me to be "getting there".

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After setting out positions, drilling, fitting with care and securing another 32 ventilators (mostly pre-painted) some 16 stubs of plastic rod to represent lamp chimneys, and the suggestion of the alarm gear tell-tales, I am more than happy to be, and to remain, completely ignorant of any external gas pipes or other additional clutter on the roof of a D.79 diner.

Not great pictures, but at least these show what's been added:

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Having painted the additional roof details in a more-or-less matching shade of grey, I masked of the coach sides, shielded the clerestory and sprayed a couple of soft-edged coats of lighter grey onto the eaves of the roof. The next day out came the bow-pen and yellow lining was applied to the beadings. While applying the lining I was worrying that I was not applying it heavily enough to show up. After the job was done I thought I had applied ita little too heavily! I think it will certainly need some tidying up plus either thinning or toning down a bit, and it looks even more over-done in the images below....Bar running numbers, I've also applied transfers. With no post-grouping images of the actual carriage to guide me, I had to accept the layout shown on the Isinglass drawing, but that shows only one side of vehicle in the required finish. For that side, the spacing of the letters in the word "RESTAURANT" was significantly closer than the supplied arrangement on the HMRS sheet. Without alteration, the HMRS item would not fit in the indicated position relative to the vertical beads on the lower side of the carriage. I considered getting some Fox transfers instead, as the stated sizes seemed promising, but then I considered where the transfers ought to be on the other side of the vehicle too. With no photograph or trusted drawing I could only use my own questionable judgement, but for the different panel layout on that side and the probable placing of the word there was no obvious case for closer spacing of letters. As a set of Fox transfers seemed an expensive option for the sake of one word on one side of a carriage, I decided to settle for alteration of one of the HMRS transfers for just one side of the model, using an unaltered transfer for the other side. For the alteration, with two Stanley knife blades clipped together, I took regular 0.6mm wide slices out of every gap between letters, then applied the remaining pieces of transfer to the model.

The "guided by Isinglass" side:

The "questionable guesswork" side

Observation of images of other teak Restaurant Cars also makes me now think that I need to delete the yellow lining from the vertical beads where those intersect with the branding.....

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Dec. 2018: Almost all images that disappeared from my own thread following loss of free remote hosting are now restored.